


Me & the Devil

by below_the_starry_clusters_bright



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: F/M, Gen, look ma i'm AU'ing greek mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 10:38:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/below_the_starry_clusters_bright/pseuds/below_the_starry_clusters_bright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She missed the idea of the world above. She barely remembered it, but there were books where she was, thousands of them, and they told of a burning sun and a luminous moon and how they shone on the fields and oceans below. As far as she could tell, the real treasures were the stars. She traced their illustrations and memorised their stories, carefully ensuring that the soft pad of her fingertip never rubbed away the ink. She mentioned the stars to him once, a brief lamentation that she could not see their beauty, and the next day he had lanterns installed into the ceilings of the caverns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Me & the Devil

He called her Persephone.

She didn't know why, and she hated the way he laughed when she asked him to explain. He never called her anything else though, and so she adopted the unusual word as a title of sorts. When enough years had passed for her to forget her real name, Persephone became her sole identifier.

It was a good name, she decided. She liked the way he murmured it into her ear as his fingers ran up her thighs. His tongue always caught at the beginning of the second syllable, drawing out a hiss that made her shiver. It coiled around her body like a snake, squeezing so slowly that she never noticed how thoroughly trapped she was until it became difficult to breathe.

When he was angry, the name became venomous fangs that sank into her skin. He shouted it in short, sharp bites, and the closest thing they came to a hiss was the sigh she gave in reply. She might have sobbed once. She probably had. She probably trembled under the weight of his voice and begged for forgiveness. She didn't remember doing so; eternity had a way of dulling the edges of both memory and fear.

He sometimes asked her if she missed the world she left behind. It was a polite enquiry only, small-talk to pass the time in between overseeing the parades of the dead. She never gave him a straight answer. He would smile, as though he understood, and then order the next soul forward.

She missed the idea of the world above. She barely remembered it, but there were books where she was, thousands of them, and they told of a burning sun and a luminous moon and how they shone on the fields and oceans below. As far as she could tell, the real treasures were the stars. She traced their illustrations and memorised their stories, carefully ensuring that the soft pad of her fingertip never rubbed away the ink. She mentioned the stars to him once, a brief lamentation that she could not see their beauty, and the next day he had lanterns installed into the ceilings of the caverns.

There had been many nights spent spread out on the ground just staring up, granting the 'stars' names and inventing constellations. He did not join her and she did not ask him to. She did not want anything to break the spell her nightly stargazing cast over her, and his flat way of viewing the world would certainly ruin things. He only permitted her her fancies when she did not include him in them, and even then it was clear that he indulged her as he would a child who was convinced that fairies lived in the garden.

(She had read about fairies, too. She wanted to ask him if they existed in other realms but she valued her daydreams far too highly to spoil them with truth.)

He had already reminded her that time was irrelevant to them. It both amused and bewildered him that she should cling to the mortal concept of capturing time and placing it in firm categories. They were no longer part of a realm which needed such distinctions. There was no sun to signal day, there was no moon to welcome in night. There was nothing celestial at all, except the constant presence of 'stars'.

It didn't seem right to her, even after all this time. Things needed distinction and balance. It was why she was here, after all. A gentle touch to try and soothe the harsh judgements he passed. It wasn't as though they were unaware, or even subtle, about it. The thrones they sat on were carved from ivory and obsidian respectively, and it was rarely something the souls who stood in front of them failed to notice.

They would appeal to her sense of justice and mercy, pleading with her as though she could not read every sin they had committed written in the blood of those they had wronged. If she condemned them, betrayal and confusion flitted across their features before they were dragged away. They so often mistook her capacity for mercy as meekness and saw fit to lie to her and offer her empty promises.

She could feel the pleasure radiating from him every time she sentenced someone to the flames. He would tell her how proud he was that she had chosen damnation, and while he said it with some semblance of affection, there was always a note of bitterness to accompany it. Sometimes the bitterness outweighed the affection, and he would demand to know if she still thought she was better than him. As if she ever had.

Perhaps he disliked the roles they had been cast into as much as she did. She never bothered to ask.

It was always easy to tell when there was conflict in the world above. There would be an influx of souls with stains which spread like poison across their bodies. Their darkness was the same regardless of if they had killed one person or a thousand, and their defiance was born of the belief that their cause was worth dying for. They never seemed to notice how the echoes of screaming children clung to them like a shroud. 

She no longer felt horror or outrage, although in the most extreme circumstances a small voice nagged at the back of her mind that she should feel something. She heeded this little voice as best she could; her condemnations reflected the emotions she could not feel.

He regarded every soul with the same impassivity. His readiness to damn petty thieves and murderers alike was a source of endless aggravation to her, just as her tight contradictions infuriated him. Together they managed a conclusion of sorts, be it eternal peace or eternal unrest. She doubted he had ever had a conscience, whereas hers had simply worn away over time.

He loved her, she recognised with a sense of detachment.

Sometimes, like when he brought her 'stars' and books and held her as they slept, she thought she could love him back.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from "Me and the Devil" by Soap&Skin. This was something written in a couple of hours to soothe a sick day. Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
